Easy Learning Italian (Collins Easy Learning Audio Course)

I have listened to this quite a few times and find it very easy to learn from and to refresh my memory by listening to it a few times.

I found the audio CD very useful. I wanted something that would give me a good grounding to start an Italian course and this was just the thing.

In my opinion, it would also be useful for a holiday or short visit to Italy and was easy to download onto my ipod.

I'd recommend it to anyone in the same situation.

Upon reading the title of my review you might think that I have unrealistically high expectations of the product. After all, it consists of 3 CDs and sells for less than £10. This isn't the case - my problem isn't that Collins Easy Learning Italian (or CELI) is short, but that it has limited coverage of the topics that people will buy it for.


Let's be realistic - this isn't the sort of thing that will teach you fluent Italian. Nor is it even a product which will give you basic conversation. It is instead intended as one of those pre-holiday "crash courses" to enable you to find your way from the airport, to the hotel, and back again without having to resort to pointing at maps. The difficulty is that a fifth of it consists of "di nuovo" units, going back over material already covered. Since the CDs are indexed at couple-of-minute intervals, the only reason I can find for this is to inflate the advertisable length. After all, if you want to go back over material you can just play the track again!

Where real credit must be given is in the liberal copyright restrictions on the product. There isn't any DRM, and even more unusually the box actually states that you are allowed to 'rip' it onto an mp3 player (a process which is, normally, technically illegal in the UK). Hats off to Collins, and long may it continue.

As someone who is appalling at learning foreign languages I always approach language courses with a sense of foreboding. I didn't need to worry though as this course is clearly aimed at complete beginners. Disc one starts with some advice and information before we launch into the course. You are eased very gently into the course. Each phrase is fully explained and repeated several times so you don't need to keep pressing pause or rewind. The diction and pronunciation is very clear and easy to understand. I found this really important as I have had trouble understanding Michel Thomas' thick accent. This course is very basic and you certainly won't be speaking fluent Italian by the end of it. The teaching/learning techniques are also not that original or exciting. But if you just want a basic introduction to Italian so that you don't make a complete fool of yourself on holiday this language course if for you!

My only criticism is that I wish the booklet was longer and more informative.

I always fancied learning Italian; I speak French, and bad Spanish, and picked up a bit along the way, but I'd like to be able to start a conversation with my Italian friends (who all speak English).

Reading the book when the package arrived, I thought it was going to a bit simple for me. (It's called "easy learning"; what was I expecting, really?) I'd decided that I ought to be concentrating on something a bit harder. I loaded the CDs on to my iPod, forgot about them then got a real surprise when they turned up on "Shuffle". However, once I started listening (and repeating when I'm not on the train surrounded by other people) I realised that this is just what I need - something that I don't find at all difficult, that helps me to learn without actually having to try very hard.

Everything else I do in life is some kind of intellectual challenge. This was a secret indulgence, like eating a bar of Green & Black's cherry chocolate - slowly. So now I listen while I eat chocolate. Speaking simple phrases that aren't difficult to learn has turned into a pleasure, not a chore.

Maybe, when I've picked up everything these three discs have to offer me, I'll move on to something more tricky - when I'm really ready.
Sometimes life doesn't have to be that hard.